Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
Today it’s time to share some dinghy news – with the Graduate dinghy appearing in the pages of the March/April issue of SA Yachting magazine.
I personally don’t ever recall having seen a Graduate dinghy, but have a single photo in my archives of one. Maybe an alert old salt will recall these and can tell us more about the local fleet?
The feature, whose author is nameless, said this: “In 1952, Dick Wyche who, with his partner Digby Coppock, had been designing and building racing dinghies in England for many years, was commissioned by the magazine “Light Craft” to design a racing dinghy which, though a thoroughbred, would retail at less than £100 including sails. The result was the “Graduate” which was in fact sold for some years in England at between £90 and £100.
“The Grad is really a hard-chine version of the British National Twelve or the Firefly dinghy. It has the same basic characteristics (other than being chine-built and not round-bilged) and has a similar performance.
“In South Africa, besides the Island Sailing Club (in Durban), there are two or three other Clubs with Grads in their fleet and it is understood that there are a few in the Rhodesia. A Class Association was formed in Durban last year.”
READ MORE HERE: 1959 03-04 – SA Yachting – graduate – OCR
